Chateau D’Oupia

A remembrance of Chateau d'Oupia's André Iché from Importer Joe Dressner (originally posted on joedressner.com - November 25, 2007):

"I first met André Iché in 1989 at a marathon Muscadet tasting at Marc Ollivier's home. André had driven across the country from Oupia, his village in the Minervois, with his wife Marie-Thêrese. It was an insanely hot weekend in August and Denyse and I had driven eight hours from Burgundy with Noël Perrin, who was then a vigneron in the Côte Châlonnaise at the Clos des Chenoves. We tasted about 20 vintages of Muscadet from Marc and his uncle, toured Marc's vineyards, ate meals, discussed viticulture, winemaking, ate more meals, drank more Muscadet and we all got to know each other.

"I barely spoke French in 1989 and I couldn't understand anything André or Marie-Thêrese said. Denyse, who is a Frenchwoman, also had trouble. I was totally unused to the accents of the Languedoc and found the pronunciations impenetrable. But, André seemed as authentic a vigneron as one could possible meet and even if we did not understand each other I knew I was entering new territory.

"Denyse and I had just started a wine business, Louis/Dressner Selections, and we were working with a group of vignerons who had formed a small marketing group together. There was Jean-Luc Mader in Alsace, Noël Perrin, Ollivier and Iché, along with someone in the Roussilon, someone in the Beaujolais, and a grumpy guy from Champagne making Blanquette de Limoux. We happened upon the group almost by accident and all these years later still work with Marc Ollivier and André Iché.

"Denyse and I received a call today from Oupia. Audrey, who works for André Iche, let us know that André had died this morning. André was 73-years-old and learned after working the 2005 harvest that he needed extensive medical exams in Montpellier. He was very disappointed that he was not going to be able to attend our annual New York tasting in April of 2006 with Polaner Selections, but his doctors did not want him to travel far, even though he felt fine. It turned out he had intestinal cancer and was going to have to go through three cycles of treatments which could not cure him. André had never been ill in his life, had never spent a day in the hospital, but finally left us this morning.

"It is going to be difficult to imagine a wine world without André. We often talk about terroir, but André lived that notion, he almost seemed the personification of those windy Languedoc vineyards. André had made quite a bit of money when everyone was producing bulk table wine that was made at enormous yields, virtually unregulated, and which sold briskly. By the early 1970s though, he was one of the first vignerons in the area to embrace the notion of going from table wine to an AOC and was one of the pioneers of the Minervois AOC, which started in 1973.

"Over three decades, he accumulated fabulous sites, often bought for a symbolic franc, which he converted into great vineyards. The great paradox of the area was that there was all that great terroir in old vines but no one wanted it -- the wines sold too cheaply and no one really knew how to make the transition to quality rather than quantity. André was the only independent winemaker in Oupia, all his neighbors brought their wine to a coop and received pennies per liter.

"André loved the land he accumulated and worked his vines until his doctors told him to stop. He had several employees, but loved nothing more than touching, guiding and working his land. He had already paid everything off and made his money and rather than try only to make expensive super-cuvées, he was able to produce a range of affordable and delectable wines which sold quickly and gave great pleasure to people who followed his work. He wound up with nearly 60 hectares and managed to run it economically and profitably at a time when the Languedoc is facing an economic catastrophe.

"It used to be such a great pleasure for us to visit André and to tour the vineyards with him. There was so much love and devotion, such an intimate relationship to the land. The first time we went he took us to a hill overlooking the town of Minerve to view the gorges and canyons surround that famed city. André told me there was nothing like that in America but I told him he was wrong, that we have beautiful sites and beautiful natural settings. André said, where do you have a view of nature that has been cultivated by man in much the same way for the past ten or eleven centuries. He had a point.

"Every little site worked by André gave something different to the final wine. Denyse and I had started in the early 90s with a list top-heavy with Burgundies. When you visited a vigneron in Burgundy you tasted, both in barrel and in bottle. But the first time we visited André we were struck how the first thing you did was visit the vineyards. André would explain in detail the nuances between each site, why one site was good for carignan, another for syrah, how one site gave structure, another aromatics.

"We sell a lot of wine from the Château d'Oupia, along with Les Hérétiques, their Vin de Pays. We always counted on André outlasting us, and doing the harvest into his 80s and his 90s. André seemed every bit as eternal as his vines and his 100-year-old Carrignan plants. He seemed at one with the terroir.

"I was talking to Jean-Paul Brun of the Beaujolais, who was also close with André, a week ago. Brun is in his mid-40s and he was telling me how at the beginning of his career he would handle chemical treatments for his vineyards that he never should have touched or been near. Jean-Paul said, imagine all the chemical that André must have touched and handled over the years, all the toxic material he would have used as the wine industry pushed all these new chemical treatments in the 1960s and 1970s. We talk about organic work now, but often forget how perhaps the biggest victims of all the chemical treatments were the vignerons and their workers.

"I have old magnums of the André's Cuvée des Barons at my home in France and look forward to opening a bottle this summer. André's memory continues in the wine he has left us, the vineyards he has planted and maintained, in his wife Marie-Thêrese and his daughter Marie-Pierre. There is now a professional manager running the vineyards and winery and Denyse and I will be meeting with him in eight days.

"What we will no longer have is André's almost magical presence. André embodied not only all the best of the Languedoc, and all the best about wine in the past 50 years, but was also a great friend who will never be replaced.

"His death is a terribly sad event for all of us who loved him."